Websites comprising social networking applications offer a number of ways to interact and communicate with people, from voice communications to instant messaging.
However, a user typically does not share private data (e.g. contact details such as a telephone number) with other users or shares private data with known contacts only to e.g. prevent unwarranted communications such as spam.
Notwithstanding the above, a user may want to withhold their contact details simply because e.g. the user does not know whether they will be at a particular location at a particular time e.g. the user may prefer for other users to contact them by using a particular telephone number (e.g. a mobile telephone number; a business telephone number; a work telephone number).
It is known to develop a social networking application (e.g. associated with a server data processing system) wherein private data associated with a user is managed such that the private data is typically kept at the server data processing system and is not transmitted to other users.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,665,389 discloses an interactive Internet-based dating service allowing people to anonymously interact via Internet browsers, telephone communications and/or video conferencing. The system employs an interactive web site allowing a person to seek another person who may be compatible for a relationship. The system gives the member the option to allow other members to make contact via email, telephone or video conferencing. All communications through the system are completely anonymous in that the searcher is never provided with the member's actual email address or phone numbers.
It should be understood that typically, in such an Internet-based system, communications from a client system occur by use of a browser—typically, private data associated with a server system is not stored on the client system.
There is a need for a mechanism which allows a client system such as a mobile device which typically does not use a browser to communicate with a server system without requiring private data to be stored on the client system.